So one ordinary day, I sent my comp card in to a “Rachel” for a commercial she was shooting. She called me up, and it turns out I already knew her.
Years ago, I helped her group for a small school project they were shooting, and when she saw my pictures, she remembered who I was, and more importantly, she decided I had the right look for the commercial project she was doing as part of Walk and Roll Studios.
Boom! No need for auditions / awkward face-to-face interviews!
The eSynchrony commercial is available at the end if you want to watch it. Here’s a blow-by-blow of the behind-the-scenes.
eSynchrony isn’t really something that many people have heard of, but it’s actually the umbrella corporation of Lunch Actually (which most people have heard of). The owner of Lunch Actually, Violet Lim, also created eSynchrony along with her team.
And if you still haven’t figured out what it is, eSynchrony is a matchmaking website.
*wink wink*
With the makeup artists and hairstylists Tiffany and Caroline! Basically, they work magic. They’re like my fairy godmothers. I love that they curled my hair instead of leaving it straight.
Them working on Michael Kwah, the male lead. This was the first time I’d ever met him, although we’ve actually worked with on a same production before in different scenes, and worked with the same other people (the acting industry in Singapore is pretty small!).
Us with the creators of Walk and Roll Studios, producer Rachel (left, standing) and director Lun (right). So when they were in Chapman University years ago, I worked with them when they were doing a school project. Years later they called me up out of the blue when they won the rights to film this production.
Luckily they still remember me!
We shot this in a cafe near the Singapore Arts Museum and the owners were very nice. They kept plying us with food because we were supposed to be on a total of two different dates (that happen on different days), so the food obviously had to change.
And we got to eat the food/drinks too. Actor’s life is a hard life.
It took a whole day to shoot, but we were quite on schedule, which is always nice. And being able to meet Michael was great, because he’s worked on a lot of productions with a lot of talented people, so he’s much more familiar with the industry than I am.
The green heart was actually made of clay, and made by Walk and Roll Studios themselves.
This production was fairly easy to shoot because there were no lines, just a montage with an overlay of music, so they could streamline the production with no need for sound recording.
See… if you freeze-framed this, this is the reason why I should not be doing a dating commercial. I look like I’m saying “Are you the one? Are you? ARE YOU?” *desperate*
Director Lun works magic, by the way.
My heels make a cameo appearance. If you’ve seen the Gadis Marmalade music video, they’re the exact same pair. One day they might get onscreen credit for appearing on camera so many times.
Dat contact lens. HAHA. I never particularly thought I looked good in an orange hue, but like I said, director Lun can work magic.
I honestly think this is the best I’ve ever looked on screen, but that’s all the work of the makeup artists and hairstylists, and the cameraman’s angles. And the combo of soft lighting, sweet music and slo-mo, we’ve got a winner.
Before you watch the commercial, Walk and Roll Studios is actually organizing a Nifty Fifty photo-contest!
Win a polaroid camera (actually I’m hoping I win it myself, then can take photos for graduation LOL) by uploading a photo relating to the theme on their Facebook page and getting 10 likes. Theme for this month is Two. It closes on 10 December.
This is my picture, vote for me! (And let me know if you joined too!)
And if you’re not based in Singapore but in Melbourne, you can always enter it and I have Singaporean friends who can bring it to you if you win! If you’re in another country… you might be out of luck. I don’t know how to help you already.
Watch the commercial!
(With that being said, I’ve personally never used this service so don’t go looking for me on that site HAHA).
Go forth and enjoy that commercial!
– Fari Wu
Fari Wu Old 
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